By July 1794, the fledgling French Republic had been at war for a little under two years and in that time its fortunes had changed dramatically. Following initial setbacks for the Revolutionaries, the war changed in France's favour with the appointment of Lazare Carnot to the post of War Minister (or as the position was formally known - Head of the Committee of Public Safety War Section). Following the introduction of the levée en masse or mass conscription, French armies had increased to around 800,000 frontline troops and a grand total of between 1.4 and 1.6 million men under arms. These were divided into 13 principal field armies.

On 2 July Michaud launched an attack all along the front. The French army was halted everywhere except on the extreme right where the young divisional commander, Louis Desaix, successfully pushed back the Allied wing. However this left his division isolated and counterattacks by the Prince of Baden and future victor of Waterloo, Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, reversed his advance while inflicting about 1,000 casualties. At the end of the day both armies occupied approximately the same positions as they had at the start of hostilities.

Möllendorf ordered his forces to regroup east of the Rhine on the night of 13–14 July thus ending all Coalition presence on the west bank. On the 16th Kalckreuth and Hohenlohe rejoined the bulk of Möllendorf's army, but no attempt to salvage the situation was made until September when Hohenlohe successfully caught Michaud off-guard. This later success however was not followed up and the complacency of both forces led to stagnation of the front.